THE BOOK OF THE DEAD

The Papyrus of Ani

by

E. A. WALLIS BUDGE

[1895]

Because of the substantial amount of hieroglypics interspersed
in the original text, I have omitted the ### 'glyph' placeholder
where context permits, for readability.
Only actual illustations have been inserted into the file.
Due to space considerations the interlinear translation, which
is primarily of interest to students of Ancient Egyptian, will not
be posted. This should not be a hardship, since the Dover reprint
edition is still in print and widely available.

The file above, which appears at on the Internet
at Sacred-Texts for the first time
is a faithful e-text of the 1895 edition of the E.A. Wallace
Budge translation of the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

In November of 2000 I inventoried my library and found that I was missing
Budge's Book of the Dead. So when a copy of the Dover reprint
came up at the local used bookstore, I purchased it.
To my dismay, the version of the text widely posted on the
Internet did not seem to match the Dover reprint of the 1895
version.

According to John Mark Ockerbloom, the proprietor of the
excellent
Online Books Page,
the version circulating on the Internet is a highly edited
version of Budge from a much later date (1913).
He writes:

"I did a little legwork, and it
appears that the "mystery text" is in fact from the Medici Society
edition of 1913. According to a 1960 reprint by University Books,
for this edition "The translation was rewritten... [and the]
greater part of the Introduction was also rewritten by Sir Wallis,
who concluded a preface to it with the pleased words, 'and the entire
work thus becomes truly a "New Edition"'". It's unclear whether
Budge himself did the rewrite of the translation, but it's
clear that he at least claims responsibility for it,. and it does
appear to draw fairly heavily on his earlier translation."

Thanks to Mr. Ockerbloom for clearing up this mystery.

In any case, the version now at sacred-texts is
a completely new e-text, which I believe to
be a much better version of this text.